A Short Story- My Room

I don’t understand this room. I have been in it for what must be years, but I do not understand it. It changes, sometimes I can see fields which I cannot touch, and sometimes I see caves which I know are under sea. I have yet to see a field or the sea, but does that mean it is not what I am seeing? What I hear and smell? I cannot touch these images but I am there and yet I am not. I am in this room. This room I do not understand.

Is it really a room? It must be for I have never left it, yet I have. I feel like I could describe these places with such a sharp detail. The way the water muffles all sound to the point a pressure builds in your ears. The sun setting with a gold hue over large fields, the wheat in the field dances with the wind as if a slow waltz is being played to only them. Two things I have never physically been near, but I could describe them with clarity I suppose great poets would envy. What is this room? How can it give me these abilities?

I could solve conflicts with a simple thought, a thought that I know to be true and have always known to be true. I may have never witnessed these conflicts but I know how to solve them. What a curious state. I feel as if by never leaving this room, I am experiencing more than if I were to brave the world. I have had many visitors in my room, they all consider me in-competent and yet I have lived more in this room than they ever could in their lives. They have their clip board and make their notes, judging me, listening to my experiences of these fields and caves. I enjoy telling them. It helps me remember where I belong. And yet I do not understand this room.

After making notes and listening to my stories, they ask of my ‘meds’ and if I am taking them. Of course I take them; I would not be part of society if I didn’t. That is one other thing they say to me, “to be part of society you must take your ‘meds’.” What is society? I have been taking these ‘meds’ for as long as I have been here, does that mean if I do not take them I am out of society? Do they take their ‘meds’? Are they each trapped in their room where they are not really trapped at all? This room, what is it?

It must be a room; they call it my room after all. If it really is a room, why is it also that field, or cave? Why have I never left the door of my room and never looked beyond it. Yet I have seen beyond it, far beyond it. The door is only one way to escape this room, the people who visit and talk with me use it, but I do not. I have no need to use it, I am already part of society, and I can see whatever I please. Do not think I am limited to the caves or fields. No. I have seen the far north, I could smell the snow it was cold and burned my senses. My visitors have told me you cannot smell snow but that is nonsense, I can. I still cannot touch the snow, but I can smell it. How curious.

What I do not understand about this room is that I do not use the door. I have no need to yet it is always there and it is a route I have never tried. It is easy enough; you turn the metal handle and walk out. How could that be difficult? I asked the visitors this question one day. They said I could not leave through that door, not yet at least. Does that mean if I keep taking my ‘meds’, I will be allowed to walk through it? I do not understand why I need permission to walk through it, it is my room therefore I can do what I want. I can certainly go wherever, but not through that door to get there. Does that mean they own the door? This is my room but their door. They can control who passes through their doors, but not where we go in our rooms.

I feel if I were to walk through their doors, I will not continue to see what I am able to see. If I am already able to leave my room, why must going through the door become important? That is what they fail to explain to me, or maybe I am unable to explain why I enjoy my room. If they could see the room as I see it, they would know. They would know how to leave and yet not leave. Perhaps I am how society works, and they are the ones going against society. I am taking my ‘meds’, I am part of society. I stay in my room, they obviously do not. They are not part of society. If I am lucky I hope to explain the power of this room. A power I am unable to understand, yet can harness it if I want. I can visit those fields at will, but cannot go through the door to get there. That is unfortunate. Or is it?